


Determinate

by Kealpos



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Dystopia, M/M, SQUIP won
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 10:44:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13500246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kealpos/pseuds/Kealpos
Summary: "Sir, drone #755821B has gone offline, as has its pilot, individual Tyler Kleyna, SQUIP #1247R."Jeremy Heere made a decision at 17-years-old in a high school auditorium. It was an easy one at that; the girl or nothing. He chose the girl, he reaped the consequences. Those consequences? Being ruler of a world that adores him, and where everything is always perfect.(Except sometimes there are signs that force you to look away, terrorist attacks gone unmentioned by Jeremy Heere, and paintings of a single, solitary rainbow patch against a red background slipped into Jeremy's mail.)





	Determinate

"This place smells like shit."

   
Michael Mell looked up at the girl only a few feet away as she wrinkled her nose, and he straightened his posture. He agreed, the place smelled horrible and touching it was even worse. Grease and rotten food juice already stained his hands. Not like he'd ever admit it to her; he was supposed to keep optimistic.

   
"It's really not that bad," he replied, lying through his teeth. Jodie looked at his head with an emotionless expression on her face before pointedly staring at his shirt, which was covered in orange seeds and moldy ramen juice, and Michael just sighed.

   
"Okay, it sucks balls. But, it's important. Where else are we gonna find the red fabric?"

"We steal it?"

"Jodie, c'mon."

   
Jodie shrugged, finally bending back down into the heap of trash surrounding her thighs, rummaging around in the filth. Michael turned back to his own section, though he hadn't found anything in it. 

   
He found himself split in three over the rummage, part one being his body, wishing he could simply just slump over and rest, as he had been forcing himself to endure the heat of the day for a little over four hours at that point to search for red fabric. Jodie had only been dropped off forty minutes beforehand and hadn't talked at all when she had arrived. 

Part two was his mind, the part of it that still lingered even after around nine years, and it told him that under no circumstances was he to rest in the trash and that in fact, he shouldn't have been there at all, didn't he see the large amount of trash all around him? That was the cleanliness of himself, the part that still felt like it had the chance to take a warm, half-hour long shower every time he got something spilled on him.

The final third part was a combination of his mind and body. The mind and body that he had developed over the nine years he spent surviving rather than thriving. The third part knew what he was doing was crucial to that survival, and it hadn't been wrong a lot after the time he spent shaping it.

   
So, Michael listened to the third part of himself and stood up again to move to a new quadrant of trash. Before he could move, however, a loud, shrill beep rang out from his pocket, surprising both him and Jodie.

   


"Jesus!" She exclaimed, slightly put off as she pulled herself off her knees. "What the fuck was that, Mell?"

Michael ignored her, staring straight ahead, his eyes wide, before fishing some machine from his back jean pocket and pressing buttons on it wildly.

   


"I said," Jodie grunted, walking over to Michael as she wiped her hands on her pants. "what was that...?" She trailed off as he looked at her, a wild and concerned look taking over his face.

"We have to get out of here soon."

"Uh..." Jodie started, rubbing her eyes. "Why?"

Michael held the machine up, which was about as big as the phones that the guards at the SQUIP factories talked on constantly, but with a lot more wires and a lot fewer buttons.

"You see this?" He asked, tapping it, his gaze still fixated on her. "I built this six years ago, and have done a lot more revisions since then, and it has never failed me since the first time. You know what it is?"

Jodie pursed her lips and folded her arms, staring at it for a few seconds before looking back at Michael and shrugging.

Michael pulled the machine back in front of his face again, and he watched it for a moment before shoving it back in his pocket.

"It detects SQUIP drones and SQUIP warplanes three miles away."

That startled Jodie, causing her to snap up slightly in fear. Michael turned around, running a messy hand through his greasy hair, sighing.

"They can't see us with the disguises, but the shit they fly can detect us if they feel like activating it. It doesn't have the same block in their code, last I heard. So we should probably get out in a few minutes at most. If they catch you, they'll probably release you, and I have no idea what happens to me. I-"

"Michael, I forgot my mask."

Michael paused at her interruption, processing what she said for a few seconds before turning his head to stare at her, his eyebrows raised in shock.

"Fuck. We have to get out of here right now."

Jodie nodded quickly, and Michael grabbed her wrist, starting to pull her when they heard a quiet buzzing sound in the sky. The two slowly looked up towards the clear blue to see a drone less than a mile away.

"Shit." Was all Jodie got out before Michael started running, his hand still gripping her wrist tightly.

The two scrambled the best they could through the heaps of trash, the drone not fully noticing them yet, but the SQUIP inside the pilot's head was most likely taking account of all surrounding they could.

Jodie and Michael seemed to have a decent chance of running away, stepping quick and quietly over the trash heaps and just needing to get to solid ground, when Jodie caught her foot on a fan and tripped, landing face first.

She howled in pain, Michael grabbing her and tugging up and away when the drone seemed to pause and then turn towards them. Michael froze for a millisecond before his instincts kicked in, and he grabbed Jodie and hauled her up before flinging her over his shoulder and making a mad dash. 

He ran, feeling nothing in the panic, breathing heavily. Michael could practically feel the engines of the drone whipping the air around. He acknowledged that Jodie was bleeding from her nose a little, but he kept running. He knew every plan needed to have a way to fix any eventuality, and even if he and his team couldn't get all the warnings, they always made sure to hide weapons anywhere anyone visited. His idea. Thank god for all the fighting video games he played when he was younger.   


Michael spotted an abandoned garbage truck -apparently, nobody had any trash in the new world that they couldn't take care of themselves- where he and his team had planted weapons, and he fucking booked it. He ran past a rat and pigeon fighting over a very, very moldy burrito, and he hoped that they managed to share. Unlikely, though.

He finally reached the truck and gently placed Jodie next to it, her back pressed against the wheel, and looked up. The drone had been far enough that it wasn't directly above them just yet, but it had managed to keep up. Michael breathed heavily, taking a quick second to compose himself before pulling the garbage truck open and reaching in blindly. A few wiggles of the arm and he finally grabbed a weapon from in the section where they would store the trash and pulled it out. 

Michael looked at the weapon in his grasp -a huge crossbow designed specifically for taking out the drones- and stared back at the sky. He took a few steps back and crouched, waiting for the drone to get close enough.

The drone buzzed closer inch by inch, Michael watching it desperately, until finally, he could see the piolet through the window, dressed up in all his gear and searching the perimeter with his SQUIP. Michael said a quick prayer which had become engrained deep in his head since this whole mess started, aimed, and pulled the trigger, sending the big-ass arrow thing directly at the drone.

The impact was a terrible, metal screeching sound, and then a crash. Michael looked away from the drone going down, breathing heavily, before chucking the crossbow back in the truck and reaching back in for a bag. In the bag sat several little, plastic containers filled with a red liquid, one of which Michael grabbed and pulled out before discarding the bag again.

"I'll be right back," he said, directing the statement at Jodie, and running off towards where the crashing sounds had happened. 

He jogged for a few minutes before finally coming across the violent site of the drone having crashed a small pit through the trash piles, and he just stared at it sadly for a few seconds.

Michael slowly walked down towards the fallen drone, sliding slightly on a rotten banana peel, before he reached the mangled mess, and shoved the cap of the red liquid's container into his mouth, gripping it with his teeth.

He paused before pushing his body against the drone, forcing it up, to find the pilot, unconscious, still strapped into his seat.

Michael shook his head slightly, before taking the container out of his mouth, uncapping it, and bringing the opening to the dude's mouth. He tipped it slowly, pouring it out before grabbing the guy's head and tilting it so he could swallow, pinching his nose and shutting his mouth.   


Michael held his breath and hoped it worked when the guy's eyes sprang open, and he started screaming. Michael ripped his shirt off and stuffed it into the guy's mouth, muffling the sound, but the liquid seemed to have done its magic.

The dude screamed around the shirt and convulsed slightly before it slowly died out and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Michael sighed, his voice raspy in a way he hadn't realized it had been, and pulled the shirt out of the guy's mouth. He stuffed it into his pocket rather than start wearing it again, and grabbed the guy's arm.

Michael felt the adrenaline start to die down slightly, and he pressed two fingers to the boy's wrist, waiting for half a minute in hope before letting the arm fall.

Michael frowned deeply, the beginnings of tears beginning to form and he had to look away for a few seconds before refocusing on the boy.

His name tag said his name was Tyler, and he looked around twenty-two. Jodie's age. A quiet tragedy that not even his supposed allies had cared about.

Michael leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to Tyler's temple, ignoring the little thought in the back of his head asking "What's the point of hoping a boy who's been dead for years goes to heaven?"

Michael stayed there for a few more minutes, just catching his breath and missing the life he held years ago where someone flying a drone had to be alive to fly it, before finally hoisting himself up and walking back over to the garbage truck, container still in hand, thinking nothing as he walked.

When he arrived back, Jodie had gotten up and called for a team to pick them up and had started to grab the weapons out from the truck while waiting. She looked at him when his foot tapped the ground, her eyes desperate and pleading, but Michael could only shake his head in response.

The unspoken question, "Was the pilot alive?" barely ever had a good answer, Michael had found. Jodie looked away sadly, tears welling up her eyes. After all, she was barely starting to come to terms with the tragedies of the rebellion compared to Michael.

Michael sighed and helped her grab the weapons out until the team arrived with their own drone, pulling them in without any questions about anyone they encountered, and Michael didn't start to tell them. These things, the way he kissed Tyler's temple and tried his best not to hit him with the arrow thing, were better kept private.

 

* * *

 

"Sir?" a young voice, maybe an 11-year-old's, started, pulling Jeremy Heere out of his thoughts.

"Whuh?" The young man said confusedly, bringing his head up and looking around before spotting the young girl.

He softened slightly, showing a smile at her as he examined her. Or, well, his SQUIP examined her.

" _I don't think I've seen her before,_ " his SQUIP buzzed in his head. " _Nice hair, dark skin, already decently tall for her assumed age... I do believe that she'll grow into an attractive, useful young woman. What's her name?_ "

Jeremy looked at the girl, who was waiting patiently, if not a little nervously. Good trait. She obviously knew how to listen to her SQUIP.

"Yeah, hello. What's your name? My SQUIP is curious."

"Lilijana Ellis, sir," she said, barely missing a beat.

Jeremy's SQUIP considered this for a second before stating matter-a-factly, " _Good reports from her SQUIP. Continue._ "

"Continue," Jeremy said out loud for his SQUIP, and Lilijana nodded before speaking.

"Sir, drone #755821B has gone offline, as has its pilot, individual Tyler Kleyna, SQUIP #1247R."

"By offline, do you mean just unconscious, or..."

"Tyler Kleyna was nineteen years old and got released at age seventeen. It's assumed he was knocked unconscious, rendering his SQUIP temporarily useless, but then was fed Deactivator Red, causing the SQUIP to completely shut down."

"Ah." Jeremy leaned his head back, looking at the ceiling as he considered this.

"Okay then. That's the thirty-first case we've documented this year. You're looking for my advice, or "go", or whatever, right?" Jeremy asked, still looking at the ceiling.

"That's correct, sir."

"Gotcha. Then here's my command," he said, tilting his head back down and staring at the wall before fixating his gaze on Lilijana. "No one will ever bother me about released going down ever again. Not unless over fifteen of them go down in the same hour. Alright?"

 

Lilijana seemed like she wanted to be concerned for her own well-being, but she kept it in check. Very good at working with her SQUIP, Jeremy faintly thought.

"Yes, sir. Should I go, sir?"

"Please."

So, Lilijana turned on her heel, walking swiftly out of the room, and Jeremy sighed, his SQUIP saying nothing in response to Jeremy's command, which was almost worse than it shocking Jeremy for making a stupid command.

After all, he made his decision a long time ago, back when he was a pimply seventeen-year-old. He made his choice and he was all the better for it because here he was. Back then, his only friend was some loser fag with a tattoo, he couldn't even get the girl to look his way, and he barely conquered an English test, let alone the world. Now, however, he got the luxury of a king with the feeling of usefulness like a CEO; had a gorgeous girlfriend, Christine Canigula, for over nine years and she was always ready to hold him when he asked; and hey, who cared about the loser anyways? He had died almost eight years ago, so he didn't even have to think about him.

And through all that, the SQUIP was with him every step of the way.

What more could he ask for?

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is https://transbrookelohst.tumblr.com/


End file.
